Italy V Argentina, Genoa, FRI Nov 14th 2014 16:15 SS1 red button

sydthebeat

Italy

|

Argentina

01: Matias Aguero|01: Marcos Ayerza
02: Leonardo Ghiraldini |02: Matías Cortese
03: Martin Castrogiovanni|03: Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro
04: Quintin Geldenhuys|04: Guido Petti*
05: Joshua Furno|05: Tomás Lavanini
06: Alessandro Zanni|06: Facundo Isa
07: Simone Favaro|07: Javier Ortega Desio
08: Sergio Parisse (c) |08: Leonardo Senatore
|
09: Edoardo Gori |09: Tomás Cubelli
10: Kelly Haimona|10: Juan Martín Hernández (c) assumed
11: Leonardo Sarto|11: Manuel Montero
12: Luca Morisi|12: Jerónimo De la Fuente
13: Michele Campagnaro|13: Horacio Agulla
14: Luke McLean|14: Lucas González Amorosino
15: Andrea Masi|15: Joaquín Tuculet
|
16: Andrea Manici|16: Santiago Iglesias Valdez
17: Alberto De Marchi|17: Lucas Noguera Paz
18: Dario Chistolini|18: Ramiro Herrera
19: Marco Bortolami|19: Lucas Ponce
20: Francesco Minto|20: Tomás Lezana
21: Guglielmo Palazzani|21: Martín Landajo
22: Luciano Orquera|22: Nicolás Sánchez
23: Giulio Toniolatti|23: Matías Moroni

*Denotes uncapped Player

Date: Friday, November 15 **
Venue: Stadio Ferraris, Genoa
Kick-off: 17.15 local (16.15 GMT)
Referee: Craig Joubert (South Africa)
Assistant referees: Glen Jackson (New Zealand), Ian Davies (Wales)

TV: Sky Sports 1 (red button)



ITALY

What is it with Italy and their constant tinkering with non home grown out halves? in recent memory they have given debuts to Luke McLean, Kristoper Burton, Craig Gower and Tommy Allan (though to be fair, actually IS Italian)
last week they handed Kiwi born Kelly Haimona his debut at 10 and he turned in a rather accomplished all round performance, kicking 14 points and having a 5 from 7 return off the tee, but more impressively was his tactical kicking, the high point of which was the little deft kick 10 meters out to lay one on the plate for Parisse, his close in support runner.
This was italys first win in a year. They followed a horrible six nations where they shipped 47 and 52 points respectively to Ireland and England (but thank god for Sartos intercept 12 minutes from time ) with a 0 for 3 summer tour return. Losses to fiji, japan and samoa was a frankly embarrassing situation for coach Jacques Brunel. Has the tide turned on the back of a 11 point victory over Samoa? well after friday we will know.

Forwards
Big Martin Castro returns for the Azzurri in the front row and will be itching for action following his suspension for the Samoa game. Other than that change its as you are with the forward pack, the only other change being Minto for Barbieri on the bench. Josh Furno continues to impress and will be one to watch again. This Italian front row has a wealth of experience with 200 caps between them. From the bench comes rather less experience with only 28 caps between them, and De Marchi having 21 of them alone.

Backs
Haimona will have his work cut out for him against a fast a wily Argie backline, where Hernandez will target his channel. His tackling and setting of defenders will have to be top notch as he faces up against a totally different set of challanges in argentina to samoa.
The benatton centre pairing of morisi and campagnaro will know each other well at this stage and while none is eye catching, both are excellent defenders and decent in attack. Not reknowned for too many line breaks from this area though, maybe they will get more return against a relatively inexperienced Argie mid field.

Argentina

last week i ask, So what of Argentina? well, im still asking.
Dont let the 10 point loss (41-31) fool you that this was some how a close game... the argies were well and thoroughly handed their asses by a Scotland which demonstrated a clinical edge and efficacy that saint Joe himself would have been proud of. Argentia has 78% in the second half, but only looked anyway dangerous in the last 10 minutes when Scotland were already 34 - 10 to the good.
So which Argentina will we see? The bullying forward pack making time and space for an extremely dangerous back line? Nah... not this time.
Hourcade seems to have set his mind that this tour will be for experimenting and looking at different combinations, as shown with the eight changes made from the side which lost last saturday.


Forwards
Creevy is out with a thigh injury and in comes Cortese. Chappero and Herrera swap places with Herrera dropping to the bench. Guillemaín, who didnt impress on his debut, is dropped altogether for another debutant in Petti with Ponce as 19 on the bench. Argenia wont like the fact that, as a forward pack which has always prided itself on strength in the set piece, it stuttered frequently against the scots. in the back row Isa and Baez swap places with Isa starting in the blind side.

Backs
JM Hernandez returns to 10, for what i can find is his first start there since the last game of the 2012 rugby championship. Sanchez is surely rested for the up coming game versus France next weekend, perhaps Argentinas real target. Cubelli replaces landajo at scrum half, De la Fuente comes into 12 with Agulla is outside him. On the right wing Amorosino starts with Imhoff rested in favour of Moroni on the bench.

Match ups
Haimona V Hernandez
Does Hernandez still have it at international level? its a long time since the 2007 RWC where he was impeccable. If he feels his coach hasnt much interest in this game, will he himself grab it by its scruff or will this be one of those 'lets get it out of the way' games? Haimona, i will wager, will continue to impress with his tactical kicking, its his defense that will be tested on friday night.

Apart from the out half match up, theres no real other battle that whets my appetite for this game. The forward battle will be an arm wrestle as usual when these two teams meet, and if the weather is bad (50% chance of rain) this could turn into a kicking bore fest.


Prediction
Relatively low scoring, it wont be a repeat of the 72 pointer we got last week.
Argentina simply wont play as badly again, regardless of the numerous changes Hourcade has made. They will want to be defensively better, even at the detriment of their attacking abilities.

the bookies have Italy +3 on this and i think they are great value for it.

italy by 5

Digifriendly

My that's a strange looking Scotland side!

sydthebeat

Digifriendly wrote: »

My that's a strange looking Scotland side!

Oops, the trouble of cutting and pasting

Thanks digi, now edited.

former legend

Sky Sports have tweeted that they'll be showing this live tomorrow.

And kick-off is 16.15 Irish time, 17.15 local time...

vienne86

former legend wrote: »

Sky Sports have tweeted that they'll be showing this live tomorrow

Excellent. Which channel? They're always a bit slow up dating their schedule.

sydthebeat

former legend wrote: »

Sky Sports have tweeted that they'll be showing this live tomorrow.

And kick-off is 16.15 Irish time, 17.15 local time...

thanks FL, edited to suit.

vienne86

It's on SS1, red button.

duckysauce

Richie Gray will be wrecked to play against the blicks the following day:p

sydthebeat

duckysauce wrote: »

Richie Gray will be wrecked to play against the blicks the following day:p

didnt you hear.... hes defected

B0X

sydthebeat wrote: »

thanks FL, edited to suit.

Can you edit the title too?

vienne86

Great to have rugby on TV this afternoon.....great start to the weekend of rugby.

former legend

vienne86 wrote: »

It's on SS1, red button.

Conflicting info as to which channel it's on.

On Sky's match preview, it says SS1, but according to this:
http://m.skysports.com/liveonsky/rugbyunion
it's SS2 and not red button.

vienne86

former legend wrote: »

Conflicting info as to which channel it's on.

On Sky's match preview, it says SS1, but according to this:
http://m.skysports.com/liveonsky/rugbyunion
it's SS2 and not red button.

You could be right. I got it here:

http://www1.skysports.com/rugby-union/news/12321/9562998/autumn-internationals-italys-test-with-argentina-rescheduled-due-to-heavy-rain

but they might have changed it.

sydthebeat

well at this stage anyone who wants to watch it will have all options open to them


anyone any thoughts on the actual game?

anyone as disappointed with the argentinan team as me?

sydneybound

sydthebeat wrote: »

well at this stage anyone who wants to watch it will have all options open to them


anyone any thoughts on the actual game?

anyone as disappointed with the argentinan team as me?

I'm looking forward to the game and will watch at least the first half, maybe even most of the 2nd.

The Argies looked tired last week will be interesting to see how italy perform after last weeks win against Samoa. Wonder what type of crowd they'll get in Genoa a day moved forward.

Here's a preview from planet rugby
http://www.planetrugby.co.uk/story/0,25883,16024_9563176,00.html

sydthebeat

pretty much the same as my prediction, glad im not completely off the wall :P

thebaz

The Pumas have become very inconsistent , some recent good results , beating Aus, then losing to Scotland - do they have problems getting ther players released for internationals which is causing this inconsistency ?

LuckyGent88

thebaz wrote: »

The Pumas have become very inconsistent , some recent good results , beating Aus, then losing to Scotland - do they have problems getting ther players released for internationals which is causing this inconsistency ?

And pretty sure they were missing legiizamon and lobbe for that victory against the Aussies. Think they were recalled to france

kooga

just to add. anybody with a foreign satellite system the game is FTA on Dmax Italia Hotbird 13 11541 v 22000

vienne86

This is coming up on my Sky box schedule as SS2 now - doesn't appear to be on the red button either.

Bridge93

Sky showing replays of old Premier League games while this is on the red button seems a bit stupid.

ThisRegard

vienne86 wrote: »

Excellent. Which channel? They're always a bit slow up dating their schedule.

vienne86 wrote: »

It's on SS1, red button.

former legend wrote: »

Conflicting info as to which channel it's on.

On Sky's match preview, it says SS1, but according to this:
http://m.skysports.com/liveonsky/rugbyunion
it's SS2 and not red button.

vienne86 wrote: »

This is coming up on my Sky box schedule as SS2 now - doesn't appear to be on the red button either.

Yep, it's appearing as a regular scheduled show on Sky Sports 2.

vienne86

Well, wherever we get to watch this, looking forward to an early start to the weekend. Italy have their tails up, and while I would normall expect the Pumas to be the better team, I think they have been very up and down....so I would say Italy will get this. Not by much though.

sydthebeat

3 - 3 after 10 mins

sydthebeat

haimona kicks a long one for 6 - 3

jesus what a terrible hair cut he has!!!

vienne86

Italy are all over the Pumas but are very well organised in defence too. Pretty impressive.

Yeah....yer man's hair does my head in!

sydneybound

This italian defensive is extremely good, the new 10 looks decent too.

skippymac6

sydthebeat wrote: »

haimona kicks a long one for 6 - 3

jesus what a terrible hair cut he has!!!

Haha it is woeful alright

vienne86

Castrogiovanni is making a point......don't omit me again....got a great turnover there and is all over the park, giving the bald guy with the pony tail (Haimona) another kick at goal....which he gets.

vienne86

sydneybound wrote: »

This italian defensive is extremely good, the new 10 looks decent too.

But he can kick.....just thumped over another huge penalty.

vienne86

Totally against the run of play, Italy let the ball go loose, Pumas hack it up field and a moment later they get an all-too-easy try, which is converted right on half time. 12-10. That was very careless of Italy.

Swan Curry

Edoardo Gori is so bad.Surely they have someone better.

vienne86

Italy getting very careless now; defence is slipping now. They should be a dozen points up by now but keep making stupid mistakes. And Pumas are becoming more confident as a result.

vienne86

Oh FFS, lovely hands for Hernandez, big yawning open space in front of Argentina and they run in the easiest of tries.....and convert it. Italy doing their best to lose this now, it seems.

who_me

Score?

vienne86

who_me wrote: »

Score?

Italy 15 Pumas 20

vienne86

It finishes 18 - 20 Argentina win. Italy had that one in the bag and only have themselves to blame. Stupid mistakes. Argentina fought their way back to be fair, and Italy just seemed to flag in the second half.